


How Very Optimistic

by geeky__chick



Series: One More Resurrection [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Die Thanos Die, End of Battle, Loki has a heart, Loki x Valkyrie, Maybe Loki and Valkyrie don't suck at feelings anymore, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Valki - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 10:13:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14714117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geeky__chick/pseuds/geeky__chick
Summary: On the last battlefield to save the universe from the Mad Titan, Loki finds himself confronted by his greatest fear.





	How Very Optimistic

**Author's Note:**

> So I lied.
> 
> There will be a fourth installment to this series and then it's done. It has to have a very happy ending, doesn't it?
> 
> Enjoy!

His life ended the moment the massive, serrated blade thrust through her chest.

She fought mere yards from him, half obscured by the battle raging around them. He’d lost sight of her a dozen times over the last hours, as the sun baked bodies of the fallen, filling the already ripe air with the stench of rot.

But Loki’s eyes unerringly found the dark gaze of his wife as the spear erupted between her breasts.

“ ** _BRUNNHILDE!_** ”

The scream of her name wrenched itself from his very soul, his voice so animalistic it hardly sounded humanoid. Breath escaped his lungs, tightening his chest. No. No, this couldn’t be happening.

Around him, the startled warriors paused with their enemies, searching for the source of the strange sound over the cacophony of battle. Loki watched in horror as the Valkyrie he loved gripped the spear piercing her chest, attempting to pull it away. Crimson spilt from her lips, gurgled up from within her now-broken body. She fell to her knees, astonishment written on her features as she did so.

The drop of her body revealed the Mad Titan behind her, a satisfied smile on his disgusting face.

He moved to close the distance between their bodies, malice and menace in every step. For all the power the Titan wielded, all the simulated nobility he claimed, Thanos had stabbed Loki’s wife in the back like a common criminal.

That Mad gaze was trained on Loki himself, though the Asgardian prince only had eyes for his bride as she blinked at him in shock.

Three thousand years in this universe and she would enter Valhalla with a blade to the back.

_No._

The word drifted through his mind on an endless loop. His mind had always been his most formidable weapon. He had to muster all of that cleverness, that trickster’s soul to find a way to save his wife.

Magic crept up from the blood-soaked terrain, singing in his veins as it always did when he found himself on Earth. It called to him, a lover’s refrain, begging to be released. He could hardly recall the training he’d received at his mother’s knee, his heart screaming, his soul thrashing every moment Brunnhilde knelt on the ground with that _thing_ sprouting from her chest. Frigga’s first lesson, though, came to him through time, through distance and death.

_Magic, my sweet Loki, wants to bend to your will. You are its master. You tell it what to do with your heart, not your head. You master it, little love._

Loki stretched out his hands with a flick of his wrists, the magic curling through him as much a part of his body as his heart. It whipped across the battlefield with ease, the glowing pulse of it knocking ally and foe to the away, leaving room for the Trickster to grasp at his wife’s body.

Realizing what he meant to do, Thanos took Brunnhilde by the hair, forcing Loki’s wife to cry out in pain. But the Valkyrie was not dead yet and when cornered, the princess of Asgard could be the most dangerous thing in the galaxy.

Her Dragonsfang slashed through the air as Brunnhilde twisted her body. She writhed in the Titan’s grip, the blade slicing along Thanos’ forearm, shredding the meat and muscle it found there. Unaccustomed to pain, the Titan roared, releasing Brunnhilde as Loki’s magic snatched her from his grasp.

Once the magic cocooned his beloved, Loki yanked on the magical chains with strength that might have even impressed his brother. The Valkyrie flew over the battlefield, her body going limp as though the bubble of Loki’s magic was safe enough for her to relax. When she reached him, Loki wrapped his wife into his arms and translocated them to the edge of the battlefield, away from the fighting.

Her blood oozed onto his fighting leathers, the rapidity of it shaking the foundations of his soul. If she died, if he lost her…

“Lackey.” Brunnhilde gasped the insult turned endearment as she continued to hemorrhage. A spray of blood coughed onto her lips, the color of it so dark Loki felt tears sting the backs of his eyes.

“ _I NEED A HEALER!”_ Loki screamed the words over his shoulder, aiming them at the collection of temporary buildings set up nearby.

He pulled her closer, twitching his magic attempting to bind the gaping wound with little success.

“In the back.” His bride continued as he shushed her. “In the Norns-damned back!”

“The coward.” Loki agreed, looking over his shoulder as the wine of a Wakandan hovercraft filled the air. “You had him pinned, my love.”

“Know I did.” Hilde grunted, her grip on his leathers slackening. “Had him…”

“Hilde!” Loki barked her name, her eyes refocusing on him as the medical team jumped from the hovercraft. “Stay with me.”

Lightning sizzled the ground only a yard or so away, the cracking **_boom_** of thunder heralding the arrival of the Asgardian king. Thor landed with a heavy thud, rushing over to where Loki held his wife as he slung Stormbreaker across his back.

“Brother.” Thor gasped as he took Brunnhilde’s hand. “Oh, sister.”

Hilde turned her weakening eyes to their king, her bloodied mouth lifting in a half-smile.

“Did you do it?” Thor asked quietly as the Wakandans attempted to approach.

Brunnhilde rolled her eyes weakly. “Course I did. I got stabbed for my trouble.”

Loki noticed his wife press something very small into his brother’s dirty hand, Thor closing his fingers over it almost reverently. Whatever they had planned together, whatever scheme they had hatched had not involved him and it…

Had it killed her?

“Just make sure,” the Valkyrie said with a grunt. “That someone you t-trust is on hand when you blow it.”

Thor’s answering grin, though worry and grief stained his eyes, lit up his bruised face.

Loki and Thor sat back, allowing the healing team access to their fallen princess. They moved rapidly, lifting her with practiced ease onto the hovercraft as one of the team filled the wound in her chest with a sticky substance.

He kissed his wife once before they took her off, not bothering to tell him the odds. He could not go with her, she would kill him dead if he left the battlefield without the war ended, one way or another.

Once they were gone, however, the reality of what Thor had done, had likely asked of his wife sent the tendrils of his seidr roiling around him as he considered that he might have seen his wife for the very last time. Would he be able to maintain the tenuous grip he had on himself if he lost her? Would the relationship he and Thor now shared be sundered by whatever the hell he asked of his sister?

“Loki…”

Thor’s words were cautionary and the King stepped away from him. To his credit, he did not reach for the axe over his shoulder, nor did he do anything aggressive to stop Loki from gathering power. He merely held his hands up in defense, a request to be heard.

“It was her idea.” Thor exhaled explosively. “I told her to keep away until I was close enough to cause a distraction.”

Not that this should have surprised him, but it did release _some_ of the tension from his magic.

“What was the plan?” Loki demanded. “Before Thanos stabbed her in the back?”

Thor shifted his weight on the balls of his feet, his hands clenching and releasing incrementally, sure signs of his discomfort. Loki felt some vindication that, at least, his noble brother felt guilty. Lifting his brows as a silent demand for him to speak, Loki waited. It was not a secret that the Asgardian prince had no capacity for foolishness when it came to his wife. Most likely, for that reason, he had not been told.

Still…

“I could never have anticipated he would strike her in the back,” Thor said quietly.

Far off, the din of battle continued, the whine of hovercraft joining as they whizzed by to collect the dead, the dying, the injured. They were needed on the front, especially Thor and Stormbreaker.

His capacity for horseshit, however, had now reached critical mass. Loki was not moving until Thor explained himself.

“She planted an explosive on Thanos,” Thor said.

Loki refrained from rolling his eyes, only by the will of Odin. “You cannot simply blow up the Gauntlet, Eitri would have ensured that.”

“Obviously,” Thor agreed with a grin of such delightful deviousness that might have even outshone Loki at his finest. “We can, however, amputate his arm inside of it.”

Loki blinked for a beat before he grinned as well. “And make sure someone is on hand to collect it.”

Thor lifted a brow over his mechanical eye.

Loki rolled his own again.

“Not me. Obviously.”

“Good.” Thor nodded, sweeping a hand toward the raging battle. “Shall we?”

Gathering his seidr, Loki translocated them both back toward the front.

 

~*~

In the end, Tony Stark managed to scoop the Gauntlet from the ground as Thanos roared in pain, with _rage_.

Hilde’s spear to the back had accomplished its goal. As Thanos’ hand was severed from his body, the Avengers and Asgardians swarmed him under. Magic, technology, and pure strength had the Titan bound in chains, staring up at them all with pure hatred in his eyes.

Honestly, it did Loki’s heart well to see his tormentor finally brought low.

He moved closer to Thanos where he knelt, bound in chains. A dagger slid sinuously between Loki’s fingers, the memory of his wife impaled on that damn spear still flashing at the back of his mind.

Here knelt the center of so much gone wrong in his life. Had he not wound up at the feet of the Titan when he fell from the Bifrost, what might have changed?

Would he have made the trip to claim Earth? Would he have last clapped eyes on his mother in person, not the shade of her sent to visit his cell? Would she live? Would Odin live? Would his brother’s love not have been tested over and over again?

What if he had never been his puppet? What if Loki’s mind had never been so invaded, so violated?

He stared at the Mad Titan, lip curling over his teeth in an expression that straddled a grimace and a sneer.

All the things he had done and Loki could still only, truly, focus on the image of Brunnhilde skewered on that blade.

“How are the mighty fallen.” Loki spoke quietly, his dagger still sliding between his fingers.

“My puppet,” Thanos replied. “I take comfort in knowing that, at least, I managed to kill the female foolish enough to exchange vows with you.”

Loki’s dagger hesitated, murder boiling in his veins. They had agreed to not kill him, to allow each society in the universe to pass their judgment on him, once things were righted, but Loki wanted nothing more than to bury his dagger in the Titan’s eye to the hilt, to watch him twitch and writhe and _die._

And yet, the truth of it sang back at him. He’d had no update as to Hilde’s condition. For all he knew, her sisters had long since come to take her home to Valhalla.

The gleam of glee in Thanos’ eyes forced Loki to relax, to adopt his nonchalance once more. Soon, very soon, he would know his wife’s fate. He would know whether or not he was to die this day as well.

Thanos continued to grin and that same murderous rage drifted up once more. Loki knew what he ought to do. He should end this, end **_him_** , now. Here on this battlefield, they should claim the Titan’s life for all that he had done, all that he might still do.

Before he could move, he felt a familiar presence at his left and another at the right of him. Thor and shockingly, Stark, had come to flank him, their posture one of solidarity. Loki knew that they wanted this bastard dead the same way he did, but it was not the will of the universe that they become the monster they sought to destroy.

Well, Loki could. Easily. He wanted to simply give in to that impulse, but Thor’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.

Loki sheathed his blade, relaxing.

“Good decision.” Stark said, thumping Loki on the back.

“Wise,” Thor chimed in with a smile.

“Well, now that we have this,” Stark continued. “And the crazy giant on the ground, let’s fix things, shall we?”

Thanos pulled at his bonds, thrashing, screaming.

As one, the heroes turned away.

Stark held the Gauntlet up.

“Anyone know how this thing works?”

~~**~~

It took hours to finally set right the universe. What had been done with a _snap_ was not so easily undone. Who needed reviving? Where did they set them? How did they come back?

Three of Earth’s heroes took jabs at unlocking the right combination to release the souls trapped within the soul stone, to send those souls where they belonged.

A sorcerer named Wong finally managed to unlock the secrets of the space, time, and soul stones. He held the massive Gauntlet on his human hand, channeled the energy of the Multiverse to sustain his mortal body as he began by setting free their lost heroes onto Wakandan soil.

Once they were restored and reunited, Wong replaced all the other dusted souls. He asked the Stones to place them in close proximity to where they died, in a safe place.

As they finished the release of souls, Loki finally felt it time to excuse himself. Thor sent him on his way, the other Avengers finally relaxed enough to let him leave. It seemed they now realized he would be starting no mischief this day.

He strode toward the western end of the city, on the outskirts of which lay the makeshift hospital. Guards working the perimeter saluted as he approached. Loki inquired as to the location of the Valkyrie, only to find them sharing a startled glance between them.

Loki’s heart stuttered in his chest. The look they shared was too quick, too solemn to belie good news. Over the many weeks Asgard’s remnants had lived in Wakanda, no one had impressed them more than the last Valkyrie. She’d befriended the General Okoye, trained with the Dora Milaje, and set herself apart from the rest of Asgard as one of them. A warrior. They adored her, respected her.

When the guards continued to hesitate, Loki inquired again. Fear licked awake in his soul, wondering if Thanos had been right, after all. Had the combined might of Wakandan technology and Asgardian healing not been enough to spare her?

From the corner of his eye, Loki caught sight of General Okoye coming from a ‘tent’ that did not exactly meet that word’s requirement. Her painted lips pulled back in a small smile and she jerked her tattooed head toward the entrance in invitation.

“Lord Prince,” Okoye said as he approached. “Follow me.”

No relief rose to balm his heart as he followed, he knew from experience that the General could keep emotion from her face, from her eyes.

They structure he trailed her into was no more a tent than a spaceship and automobile.

Temporary as it might be, the movable hospital boasted sturdy walls in sterile white, equipment stacked neatly beside the monitored beds, supplies meticulously placed in bins adhered to the walls.

Only on Asgard’s battlefields had Loki seen such technology put to use.

“The doctors and healers worked for several hours,” Okoye said as they moved through the aisles. “The wound was deep and wide, but it missed her heart and lungs. They were able to repair the damage, your highness.”

This time, relief swelled so swiftly, so fiercely that Loki’s stepped stammered to a stop. Okoye halted as well, turning to him with kindness and understanding in her smile.

After a beat, Loki collected himself. He smoothed his hair, removed the blood from his hands and leathers with a trickle of magic.

In his mind, he saw Thanos’ blade again piercing his wife’s body, crimson staining her blue and silver armor.

When he stepped into the curtained off section designated for her, however, Loki had a smile on his face.

Brunnhilde lay against her pillows, her lovely face pale, those dark eyes ringed with black. Beside her, the Hulk’s alter ego spooned ice between her cracked lips. At the foot of her bed, the young Wakandan princess tapped on a screen.

“Ah. There he is. My dashing prince.”

His wife’s voice was tired, thick, the very cadence of her words slow, stuttered.

“Don’t get her excited,” Princess Shuri cautioned. “She could rip the dermalplast apart. Keep her still, make her rest.”

Loki nodded. “Thank you, your highness.”

Shuri merely smiled as she saw herself through the curtain. She did not even smirk at the way his voice had broken, at the pain in it.

Banner stood as the princess exited, releasing Brunnhilde’s hand with a pat. He whispered something that made the recovering Valkyrie smile. She offered him a wave as he slid around Loki toward the curtain.

Loki said nothing for several moments, merely standing in his wife’s “doorway”, watching the rise and fall of her chest, the proof that she had not strayed to the land of the dead. He’d thought, when the blade erupted from her chest, that he had lost her, lost the part of himself that he now enjoyed.

The stark horror that filled his soul at the mere thought of losing her winded him. Brunnhilde had come so close to dying, he had nearly become a widower three days into his marriage.

“I never asked to be protected, husband.”

Her voice sliced into his reverie with a surgeon’s precision, amputating that thought before it fully formed in his head, as though she could read his mind. Of course she could. She always knew.

Loki finally approached her bed, taking the hand she offered, perching on the edge of her mattress.

“No one needs to ask,” Loki replied. “Protection is innate between bonded couples, or so I’m told.”

Her wan smile widened. “You’re a pest.”

“You adore me for it.”

He shifted closer, taking both of those familiar hands in his. Brunnhilde allowed her thumbs to run over the ripple of his knuckles.

Such intimacy in so easy a touch, a touch not to harm or inflame, a touch simply because it was allowed. No one had ever touched him thus, other than his mother and brother. No one had touched Loki because they wanted to, because it was allowed, because they _liked_ to touch him.

It was something he cherished in his Valkyrie, his _wife_.

“We won, then?” She asked after a moment of silence between them.

Loki nodded once. “Because of a princess with a suicidal plan she did not share with her husband.”

His Hilde had the grace to look somewhat chagrined.

“If you had known…”

“I know.” Loki whispered, smiling. “But I died the moment I saw that spear in your chest, beloved.”

“I’m sorry.” Brunnhilde replied softly. “I never intended to get stabbed in the back.”

“Even when married to me?” Loki teased, his brows lifted. “How very optimistic.”

Brunnhilde chuckled, shaking her head. She motioned to the meager space beside her body, sighing softly.

“Come.” She urged him. “Rest, my prince.”

Loki quietly laid beside her, beside the bed, on a small cushion of magic. He held his wife as close as he dared, watching as she slept.


End file.
